You are sitting in front of a computer, connected to the Internet, and logged into your favourite online forum. On the screen is a brand new forum thread highlighting the latest avatar contest. There is an exit behind you leading to the rest of the world.

> OPEN THREAD

You click on the thread and start to read it. You learn that the theme of the contest is all about computer adventure games.

> READ MORE

The forum thread describes that the theme is about "the adventure games of old, where you have an inventory, an unfamiliar (sometimes fantasy) setting, a set of instructions to use, and directions to travel in, sometimes with exits." You realise that such adventure games require your wits, some lateral thinking, and a bit of courage in order to succeed.

> YAWN

Just as boredom starts to creep into your mind, you scroll down the thread more, and something catches your eye.

The thread continues: "The contest theme is not restricted to text adventures - there is also the wide world of the point-and-click adventure subgenre, which provided a graphical interface and amusing graphics, sound and voices to breathe life into the story world, and these are not only accepted but encouraged in this contest."

> READ FINAL PART OF THE POST
"The closing date for applications is late this Saturday."

You ponder on this for a moment. Do you make an early start, or decide to leave things for later?

> SWITCH OFF COMPUTER
You switch off the computer.

You are sitting in darkness. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Click to expand...

So anyway, the theme this week is the computer Adventure Game: graphical point-and-click, text-based, or other similar types. If you can convince me to include your favourite action-adventure game, I might consider it too. However, I don't think RPG-adventure games will be allowed this time (we've had a RPG contest fairly recently).

I'll allow entries for the contest until late on Saturday night, then set up the poll.

The first one I actually played was The Sleeping Dragon on Xbox. I loved the game, but I couldn't find any copies of the first two games. Then I played The Angel of Death (Secrets of the Ark in the US ) when that came out for the PC, and I kept digging for copies of the first two games before finally finding them on the Amazon Marketplace. Great games. I hope they make another, but adventure games don't seem to be en vogue nowadays.